China's compute hits 2,592 EFLOPS; Epoch estimate matches MIIT almost exactly
teortaxesTex · x · 2026-10-28
Independent cross-checks on China's AI compute scale:
- Official figure: Per MIIT, China's smart computing power reached 2,592 EFLOPS by end of September, up 146% YoY.
- Epoch convergence: Epoch uses dense 8-bit H100-equivalents and estimates 2.64M H100e in China (2.61 ZFLOPS) — exactly in line with MIIT's fp16-based estimate. The poster isn't fully convinced but doubts the error exceeds 3x.
- Deeper analysis in the attached images (on Cushman & Wakefield undercounting China): Chinese official sources report data centers consumed 170–196 TWh in 2025, implying 19.4–22.4 GW average draw; C&W's 5.49 GW operational IT capacity estimate would yield only 48.1 TWh/year even at 100% utilization, requiring an implausible PUE of 3.5–4.1. China's 2026 Computing Power Conference reported 15.56M standard racks in use, 38.9 GW at the 2.5 kW/rack reference. SemiAnalysis's 24 GW looks far more plausible. US side: C&W reports 50.3 GW operational across the Americas (94.1% US = 47.3 GW) vs SemiAnalysis's 56 GW, shrinking the US-China gap considerably.
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